Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care releases golden eagle

On Sunday, Sept. 25, Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care released a male golden eagle that had been living at the rehabilitation center for just over a month.

“He was ready to go. When he came in, he was extremely thin and wasn’t flying very well,” LTWC founder Tom Millham said.

Two weeks ago, volunteers and staff began taking the eagle out for exercise time in which the bird would practice flying. He grew better each day.

Millham began eyeing Sunday, Sept. 25, as a release date approximately one week ago. On the 19th, the golden eagle continued flight improvement during practice and exercise time.

“It confirmed my thought he was ready to go. The last flight and exercise training was on Friday [the 23rd]. He flew about 15 times and didn’t really get winded. I was confident he would do well,” Millham said.

On Sunday, LTWC released the eagle at Carson Pass, and the release went exactly as Millham expected.

“On several instances at that location when we let birds go, they just soar down, down, down towards the lake before catching a thermal and coming back up. This one, I don’t think he went down at all. That doesn’t happen very often,” Millham explained.

For more information on Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care, visit http://www.ltwc.org or find the organization on Facebook.